to consider a useless appendage to the Church. Consequently the plan of campaign adopted inconsiderately by M. Guichard was promptly abandoned, and M. Jules Ferry, the new Minister of Public Instruction, gave a different turn to the attack by the celebrated bill which he brought to the Chamber of Deputies in March, 1879, and which is the proper subject of the present paper.

Two great objects were aimed at by this bill. First, it was an insidious attack against the Catholic universities lately organized; and, secondly, the religious orders not recognized by the state were to be deprived of the freedom of teaching granted them by the law of 1850. The designers of this project did not wish to appear opposed to freedom, except as against foreigners and open enemies of the Republic. They were great liberals, the leaders in fact of all liberal measures. The bishops, consequently, the secular clergy, the Orders even recognized by the state, would continue to have the liberty of education they enjoyed; only it would be better guarded by some few measures of their own device, which would give to the state a little more authority over them. These were certainly benevolent intentions. It remains to see how far they were

sincere.

And first with regard to the Catholic universities, they would be, of course, respected; and the bishops would find that M. Ferry and his friends were not their enemies. Very little would be changed with regard to them in the provisions of the new bill. Only two small items would be insisted upon: the fees, which, according to the law of 1875, were paid by the Catholic students, would no more be exacted; and the examinations, which, according to the same law, were passed before a mixed board, would henceforth be left altogether to the State University professors, to whom alone fees would be paid. The fees previously paid for tuition and for examination were the only pecuniary resources of the Catholic universities, and M. Ferry and his friends thought that this single measure would oblige the bishops to close their establishments. Remonstrances. were made on this point, but they were of no avail; and it seems strange that in all the excitement on the Catholic side which followed, far less energy was displayed against this part of the bill than against the article 7th, which excluded from teaching the religious not authorized by the state. The fact is that the Catholics were determined to keep their universities in spite of all obstacles; and if it came to the worst, and their resources were totally taken away from them, the Catholics, who had already found in their purse the many millions required for the foundation of those establishments, would also provide for their yearly maintenance. This was evidently the reason why so little noise was made against this outrageous feature of M. Ferry's project. The reader may be

assured that whatever may be the ultimate fate of this bill before the Senate, the universities will go on with more éclat than ever. The professors will be satisfied with their bare subsistence, all the expenses which are not absolutely necessary will be curtailed, and the French Catholics will find in their almost empty purses whatever will be strictly required. They are on their mettle, and nothing is impossible to them.

But the great battle has been fought and is yet raging on the article 7th. It is proper to give it in French: "Nul ne sera plus admis à participer à l'enseignement public ou libre, ni à diriger un établissement de quelque ordre que ce soit, s'il appartient à une congrégation non autorisée." It is short and plain. If it becomes a law no man belonging to the congregations of the Jesuits, Dominicans, Oratorians, Benedictines, etc., will be able to teach in any school, lay or clerical. Consequently not only those orders will be forbidden to open any institution of their own, of whatever degree, but no bishop will be allowed to appoint any of their members to a chair of theology or philosophy in his Grand Séminaire, to a professorship of belles-lettres, or grammar, or even of simple elements in his Petit Séminaire, which is understood in this article as public teaching. The French, to their honor, felt the ignominy of such barefaced tyranny; and not only the Catholics themselves, but many rationalists, freethinkers, and Protestants joined, in the firm. determination of uncompromising resistance. All those in fact who had adopted truly liberal ideas, and wished freedom for all, according to the motto of Montalembert, spoke in public, wrote in papers, and published powerful pamphlets where the cause of the Jesuits was openly advocated.

But it is time to look at the attack; the resistance will be better appreciated. The Committee in the Lower House appointed to report on the Ferry bill was, of course, ardently in favor of it. Every one knew that it would be carried in that Assembly without. the slightest amendment. The composition of this body of legislators is truly inexplicable. Never since the first republic has any combination of public men showed such a disregard of justice and right. It is, however, the direct result of universal suffrage; but it is known how incompetent are the French to use this privilege with prudence and a right understanding of the common welfare.

M. Spuller, the chairman of the committee, presented his report at the beginning of June, 1879. It is important to attentively examine some of its points. It had a threefold object: to lay down. the true source of power in point of public teaching; to discuss the objections that had already been made against it by bishops and other petitioners; to justify every article of the new bill. With regard to the first of these points the task of M. Spuller appeared

to him plain and easy, but was not so satisfactory to many of his readers. "The state is eminently the public instructor of the nation;" this was the principle on which all his argument was based. But this axiom needed first to be proved, and it was not. At all times and in all nations the parents have been considered the first instructors of their children. When they cannot do it themselves it is their right to look for other teachers in their place. As long as the children are under age the family is a unit, and the state cannot interfere except in the case of an open danger for the public welfare or of the violation of others' rights. Here the government pretended to see a danger, but no one else perceived it except the members of a party which called itself liberal and was in fact despotic. France had certainly never before admitted that the state alone can teach in so sweeping a manner as the Spuller report pretends it should. The proof of it was that in all the recent constitutions, except in the first followed by Napoleon, the freedom of education was promised as a corrective of the state influence.

Beside this first remark the reporter of the new bill did not clearly define what he understood by the state. This word has many meanings, as it is generally used. It may signify the totality of public institutions, or the administration in its complexity, or the executive alone, or finally a mere party which has obtained the governing power. M. Spuller did not seem to accept any of these interpretations, but he invented a new definition of his own which no doubt will startle the great majority of American readers. "The state," he said, “is a civil, lay, and political power, able to keep in check the pretensions of the spiritual authority!" This, in his opinion, was the great institution which was to be also "the public instructor of the nation." By its very essence it must be in a constant state of warfare against the Church.

M. Spuller, however, pretended to give proofs of his fundamental principle. He mentioned two in particular: the first was that freedom of education had never been granted by the state in France; just the contrary of the truth, except under the Convention. At all times, undoubtedly, unless during the first part of the Middle Ages, the state in France had extended its supervision over public teaching; but it is beyond contradiction that until 1789 the state left it entirely to the clergy, and never restricted its freedom. It only kept public order among the various institutions intrusted with it. For the religious orders taught concurrently with the universities, and it was proper that the state should interfere whenever a disagreement among them arose. This was then the only state interference in public instruction. This error of M. Spuller was immediately exposed and refuted in many pamphlets and speeches.

But his second proof was in some sense a still greater failure. VOL. V.-14

"Public instruction," he said, "is for the state an object of high interest;" and he concluded from this that the state must have the monopoly of it. At these words energetic and eloquent remonstrances came from all sides. For since the state must and does take interest in everything which concerns the citizens' welfare, it strictly follows that it must interfere in all those concerns, or rather take to itself the total management of them. This is well known to be the great principle of the rankest socialism of our day; and it was easy to convict the reporter of belonging to the sect of socialists, or at least of favoring and fostering it.

Meanwhile, in the midst of this fierce contest, the great danger to the Church appeared more ominous than ever. It has been stated that in presenting this bill to the legislature the government did not intend to alarm too much the religious interests. If the Catholic universities were "insidiously attacked," as was said, they nevertheless appeared to be safe from destruction. If some religious corporations (not authorized by the state) were excluded from teaching the whole body of the secular clergy were left as free as before, and even several orders of the Church (being authorized) could continue to teach. The real danger did not appear such as to excite the sudden outcry of execration that was raised on the part of the Church's friends.

But suddenly M. Spuller comes with his report, and he boldly asserts that in point of teaching the state is the only master, so that everything is despotically under its sway. At his bidding a certain number only of the colleges of the country under the Church's control are suppressed; but next year, if the same principles prevail, everything else bearing the religious character can be swept away like so many cobwebs. And that this was the real intention of these men seemed proved by the motto of their great leader, M. Gambetta, namely, that l'ennemi c'est le cléricalisme; and the object of the new bill with regard to the Catholic universities was unmistakably to end in their suppression.

This was sufficient to bind firmly together all those who took an interest in religion. There was no longer any fear that the secular clergy would see without dismay, and perhaps with a sort of satisfaction, the disappearance of a few of the regulars. The enemies of the Church had too openly showed the direct object of their attack, and the whole clergy of France, from the highest archbishop or cardinal to the humblest parish priest or curate, was as solidly bound together as if they had formed only a single bar of steel.

That the intention was to use this law as an entering-wedge into the most essential of the Church's prerogatives, was shown not by a few passages only of this political tirade, but by the whole

performance. The reason on which M. Spuller most insisted was the threatening aspect of ultramontanism, which would ultimately triumph in France if the free colleges continued to exist. The Syllabus particularly was the bugbear evoked by the reporter. According to his wise arguments, if the Church wished to obtain the freedom of teaching, it was with the evident intention of concentrating it into her hands, and in the end excluding all lay teachers from this function. Texts were quoted by him from Catholic authors, whose words were tortured into a meaning which the writers never had. Nothing was better calculated to unite as a band of brothers all those who had the good of religion at heart; for the Syllabus and ultramontanism, rightly understood, are now the Church's doctrine.

But the effect of this report went still further, and opened the eyes of many true liberals in France to the projects intended for the future. If this bill became a law, the despotic power which was supposed by M. Spuller to be the aim of the Church in asking for freedom, would be in truth vested by it in the state. This was tantamount to the establishment of a state morality and a state religion, which is perhaps the thing most abhorrent to the modern Frenchman. As the state, moreover, takes every day more and more the appearance of a party, if the dominant faction became at last that of socialism the way would have been paved by this bill for the crushing despotism which every one knows socialism keeps in store in case of its success. This was a sudden revelation for many men who cared little for the Church, and perhaps even dreaded her, but would never consent to take on their necks a far heavier yoke. Thus a considerable number of pure liberals, including among them even some avowed atheists or positivists, openly declared themselves against the passage of this bill, particularly against the seventh clause. They wrote letters in the public journals, made speeches, published pamphlets, increased the popular agitation in every possible way. This alarmed the party which had raised that storm, namely, the administration itself. They wished to strengthen public opinion in their favor, and asked the Councils General of all the Prefectures of France to discuss the question among themselves, and express their views of it in their annual reports. From the reign of Napoleon III, and perhaps during the Republic which preceded it, these public bodies, which are composed of the most prominent men of each department, and are the official advisers of the Prefects, have become extremely influential, and on all great occasions they are consulted by the cabinet at Paris. A large number of new members had been lately elected, favorable, as was thought, to the projects of the government, and M. Ferry had no doubt that a thundering answer